


The FBI Holiday Children’s Benefit: Featuring Dracula, the Movie

by decotex



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, hahahahaha, holiday murder fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 16:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3141206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decotex/pseuds/decotex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will attends an FBI charity event. Hannibal's there because he goes where he wants. It's a weird night for everyone, especially the guy who gets murdered. </p><p>Written for the Hannibal Secret Santa 2014 fic exchange on Tumblr. This is a gift for mythologyhotspot, who asked for a fic where Will compares Hannibal to cinema’s most famous vampires.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The FBI Holiday Children’s Benefit: Featuring Dracula, the Movie

It was a comedy of errors that led to Will Graham attending the FBI Holiday Children’s Benefit: Featuring Dracula, the Movie.

Will hadn’t intended to go. He had opened the invitation, rolled his eyes at “Children’s Holiday Benefit,” rolled his eyes again at “Featuring Dracula, the Movie,” and thrown it away. The idea of going was so openly ridiculous that he couldn’t even formulate a proper response when Jack Crawford’s newly hired publicist (a stern businesswoman who smelled faintly of vanilla) informed him that his attendance was mandatory.

“I know it’s not your thing,” she said, examining her nails. “But-”

“Not my thing,” Will echoed mildly. He had been kept waiting in the conference room for half an hour, with only a desk shrub for company. It wasn’t as if he had anywhere else to be, but still. “A children’s benefit would be ‘Not My Thing’ if I were introverted or shy or hated kids. As it is, I'm probably not even allowed within a hundred feet of most schools.”

“So I’ve heard.” The new publicist had been hired in the wake of Will’s incarceration. Will supposed she should thank him for her job. “Which is exactly why you need to be photographed at a children’s benefit. I can only paint you as the innocent victim if you start acting like one. Publically, at least.”

Jack, who had been sitting at the other end of the table looking as uncomfortable as Will felt, leaned forward. “Look, she’s not asking you to be a philanthropist. We’re desperate for some good press here. Show up, take a few pictures, go home. That’s all we ask.”

“But I’ve killed people,” he whined.

“That’s really not my problem,” she said brightly. “Just don’t mention that at the benefit.” She stood up and pushed in her chair. Jack reluctantly followed suit. Clearly, the meeting was over.

Will stayed seated, leaning back in his chair and resigning himself to attendance.

“In fact,” she said, as she walked out. “It would be ideal if you didn’t talk to anyone at all.”

\---

Secondly, no one had really wanted to watch Dracula.

“Dracula? As in, the vampire gore and sex fest? For our _children’s holiday benefit?”_ The FBI Baltimore Senior Events Coordinator had stayed up late the previous night going over details with the caterer and couldn’t really summon the energy to dampen her scorn.

Emil the Unpaid Intern held his hands up. “No, of course not! You’re thinking of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 Dracula, starring Winona . . . Ryder . . .” He trailed off as her glare intensified.

“Oh, sorry. You’re talking about that one Dracula movie where he isn’t a vampire?”

“Look, your directions were ‘something classic, inoffensive, and festive.’ Tell me the 1931 Dracula isn’t all of those things.”

“I mean.” The Senior Events Coordinator closed her eyes. She thought back to her previous job as an events manager for a bank. Simpler times. Happier times. Times when no one booked Dracula for a children’s holiday party. She opened her eyes. Emil’s swivel chair kept slowly rotating left, and he had to keep turning himself to stay facing her.

“The thing about Dracula, Emil,” she said, calmly. “The thing about Dracula is that it is festive in a very different way than, say, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Frosty the Snowman. The thing about Dracula is that it is very appropriate for one holiday, and that holiday would be Halloween.”

“I know,” said Emil, miserably. “But all the Christmas movies were over budget.”

“Over budget.”

Emil retreated further into his swivel chair. “The marketing guy said it would be quirky.”

“ _Quirky._ ” The Senior Events Coordinator put her head in her hands.

\---

“FBI Holiday Children’s Benefit: Featuring Dracula, the Movie,” read the twenty-foot banner hanging over the doorway of the Lawrence Baltimore Opera House. The building had been done up in red and silver tinsel, with ornamented Christmas trees twinkling between each of the support pillars. Two giant searchlights shone upwards on either side of the building, rotating slowly.

A steady flood of important-looking people trickled from the line of expensive cars onto the silver carpet, past the press area, up the stairs, and through the grand double-doors into the sparkling reception room.

The press area, which had been cordoned off to the right of the staircase, was packed full of reporters with various cameras and recording devices.

The combined effect of it all was very bright, very impressive, and especially grandiose.

Will hated it.

He went in anyway, bracing himself against the flash of the cameras.

\---

"Hello, Will."

Will didn't have to turn around. He didn't know any other Europeans.

"You don't even work here," he frowned, by way of greeting. The worst part was, he wasn’t surprised. Of course Hannibal would attend a FBI Holiday Benefit.

"Neither do you, officially. And yet, here we are." Hannibal sipped his champagne, swirling it casually with two fingers. He was wearing a deep red textured suit, which was inherently ridiculous (not unlike the rest of him) but somehow worked, by the same trick of confidence that lets a man with a clipboard and an authoritative attitude into restricted areas.

Will liked to think that there were some days when Hannibal recognized that he was maybe too much - days when he looked at his orange paisley pocket square and his green plaid suit and thought, maybe not at the same time.

"Actually I'm a professor here, employed by the FBI. While my consulting may be off the record, my teaching is not."

Hannibal dipped his head in acquiescence and smiled at a passing woman-Marsha Davies, Head of either Linguistics or PR, if Will remembered correctly. Will had never even talked to Marsha Davies. Hannibal was probably on better terms with people here than he was, Will thought sullenly.

"I had hoped to see you here," Hannibal commented, directed at Will. “But I didn’t expect to have the pleasure.”

"Can't you see?” Will said dryly. “I'm mingling.”

"I understand work-related social events aren’t exactly your forte."

"You _are_ my work-related social events."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"You would.”

Framed Dracula posters had been hung along the walls, and Will turned to examine the one closest to them.

"You know, you remind me of him," he said.

"Do I? In what way?" Hannibal’s smile wasn't exactly threatening; Hannibal was too polite for that. It just hinted that if one were to say or even allude to certain things out loud and in public, that person would live just long enough to regret it.

"The whole package. The eccentric European nobleman with equally eccentric dining habits."

Hannibal stared at him for a moment longer before nodding, apparently deciding it to be an adequate comparison.

"I would hope, for the sake of my ego, that there are some qualities which Dracula and I do not share," he commented, as on the poster a bald and sickly Dracula waved his claws at a group of villagers.

"Not this Dracula. The Van Helsing Dracula, maybe."

“The . . .?”

“Hugh Jackman movie. He plays Van Helsing, not Dracula. I don’t know who plays Dracula. But you look like him.”

The lights dimmed once, indicating the impending start of the night’s entertainment. People murmured in delight, laughing as they drifted towards the doors to the theater.

“I have a private box,” remarked Hannibal. ( _He would._ ) “Care to join me?”

\---

"Why Dracula?”

They sat alone in Hannibal’s private box, looking down at the stage as someone gave a presentation on the FBI’s yearly charity work.

“Why not Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Frosty the Snowman?"

"Dracula's a classic," was all Hannibal said. He didn’t appear to be any more interested in the presentation than Will was, his eyes continually drifting towards his watch. Uncharacteristically impatient, Will thought.

_“ . . . And among our generous donors, the magnanimous Hannibal Lecter.”_

Suddenly a spotlight illuminated the both of them, and Hannibal was standing and bowing politely while people clapped. Will thought for a moment that he was going to give a speech, but then the applause died out and Hannibal sat down, folding his legs and looking very pleased with himself.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as apologetically as he could manage, which wasn’t very apologetic at all. “I know you dislike attention.”

“And I know you thrive on it.”

“Sometimes.”

The woman on stage-Will recognized her now as Senior Events Coordinator Neda Mayamiko-concluded her speech with a thanks to the general Baltimore community. The lights faded to blackness and the curtains parted, and Will relaxed for a long, boring movie full of bad special effects and tacky prosthetics.

But then a hand grabbed his arm and pulled him out of his chair, and then Hannibal was leading him silently and efficiently through an unmarked door in the hallway, and then he and Hannibal were exiting the opera house through an unused service entrance to a car with tinted windows that Will did not recognize and all Will could think was that this should probably upset him more than it did.

\---

His name was Pearce Odilo. He had been a painter, back when his head was the right way around. As it was, he was just a corpse, which Hannibal was currently dismembering faster and more efficiently than Will had previously thought was humanly possible.

“Time,” Hannibal said, as he worked on sawing the man’s left leg off.

“Eight forty-two. Why can’t you just put it in the trunk and cut it up later?”

The leg dropped to the ground with a fleshy thud, and Hannibal began working on the right one. “He’s too big. Won’t fit.”

Will walked over to look at the framed photos on the mantel. Pearce Odilo seemed like an ordinary sort of man, with ordinary sorts of relatives. No wife or kids, which was nice, although Will wasn’t sure whether that would have made him feel guiltier. He liked to think it would have.

“Shall we?”

Will turned around. Hannibal had was standing, covered in blood, with a plastic bag full of Pearce Odilo slung over his shoulder.

“Sure.”

\---

They drove in silence, punctuated by Hannibal intermittently asking for the time. It was the only indication Hannibal gave that he was hurrying. They switched cars twice. Around nine they stopped at a nondescript warehouse. Hannibal went in, and came out wearing unbloodied copies of the same clothes.

Will didn’t ask.

\---

“How did it feel?”

Will looked over. It was the first time either of them had spoken in fifteen minutes. Hannibal had stopped asking for the time, so Will assumed that they were either making great time and had gone completely undetected or were currently evading a large FBI manhunt.

“You’re asking me? I didn’t do anything. You’re the one who just dismembered a corpse.”

“Yes, but you’re the one who killed him.”

Will shrugged and looked away.

\---

They entered the opera house the same way they had left, and made it back to Hannibal’s box just as Dracula killed Renfield. There were several minutes left to the movie, but Will knew they had cut it close. Hannibal preferred to have hours, even days to spare.

"Do you drink blood?" Will asked suddenly, as the thought occurred to him.

Hannibal didn't answer, didn’t even acknowledge the question, but Will hadn't expected him to.

"Have I drunk blood?”

On screen, Van Helsing impaled a screaming Dracula.

\---

The crowd had returned to the lobby, hovering in small circles around the champagne tables like so many butterflies. Will allowed himself exactly two seconds to be impressed by the wealth surrounding him before making a desperate break for the exit.

“Will!”

He sighed and turned. Alana, Hannibal and the Senior Events Coordinator stood together near the donations table. Will joined them, swearing to himself that once this was over he would never set foot outside of his house again.

“Will,” said Hannibal, smiling. “Allow me to introduce-”

“Neda Mayamiko. I don’t believe we’ve met,” said Will.

Neda smiled politely, but the night had clearly taken its toll. She looked as ready to go home as Will felt.

“There’s no introduction required. Who hasn’t heard of the great Will Graham?”

“Ha.”

“Excuse me,” a woman with a camera interrupted. “Picture?”

Will took a large sidestep away, as Neda, Alana, and Hannibal moved to pose together. He thought for a minute he was in the clear, and then the photographer turned to him.

“You too, please,” she said, motioning with her camera.

Before Will could tell her exactly where she could put said camera, Hannibal pulled him into the photo. Will tried to smile in a way that conveyed no happiness, which he had been told he was very good at, but then Alana gripped his hand behind their backs and he accidentally gave a genuine smile just as the camera flashed.

“Thanks,” said the photographer, looking at the display on her camera. “That’s a front-pager, if I ever saw one.”

Oh _good._

“If you’ll excuse me,” said Will, backing away. “I have to . . .” He gestured vaguely and then stalked off towards the door, ignoring the camera flashes as best he could.

\---

Hannibal caught up with him a block down the street, where Will had been waiting in an attempt to avert the press.

“Allow me to walk you to your car,” he said, flushed and slightly out of breath. He must have run after him. Or speed-walked, at least. Will couldn’t imagine Hannibal running anywhere. (Running was something that happened to other people.)

“I took a taxi.”

“Then allow me to drive you home.”

“It’s out of your way.”

“I don’t mind.”

Will thought offhandedly about how romantic this would be under any other circumstances. Having just committed several felonies, it was less so.

“Will Graham!” Will turned. One of the larger camera crews was approaching them from the direction of the benefit. Clearly, he had been discovered.

He looked back to Hannibal.

“Where did you park?”

\---

The Bentley tore through the country roads like a charging beast, as Will found himself in (one of) Hannibal’s cars for the third time that night.

He liked the Bentley. It had heated leather seats and six cup holders.

It occurred to Will that he didn’t know where the body of Pearce Odilo had ended up. That was probably intentional, on Hannibal’s part. For all Will knew, it could be in the trunk of the Bentley right now, wrapped in several layers of plastic and doused in Febreze. Will really hoped it wasn’t.

They were just passing the Safeway half an hour out from Wolf Trap when Hannibal broke the silence.

"Marry me.”

“ _Ha._ ”

“Think about it.”

“I’ll try my hardest not to,” Will promised.

“That’s all I ask.”

\---

EARLIER

\---

“Why? What did he do?”

Will didn’t think it was so unreasonable a question, to ask why he should kill this Pearce Odilo, currently asleep inside 164 Garden Avenue, but Hannibal stared at him from the drivers seat as if he’d just grown a second head or refused desert. If he’d been anyone else, he might have raised an eyebrow.

“I had hoped, dear Will, that by now we had moved past the concept of karma. No one deserves anything. There is no justice. There is only death.”

“But what did he do? Why should I kill him? Is he a bad person? This is what normal people think when they think about killing people.”

Hannibal looked at him sharply. “We are not normal people.”

“Right. Those boring normal people and their boring moral codes. Who needs them? We’ve got intellectual superiority and infallible egos.”

“Pearce Odilo dies tonight, by your hand or otherwise.”

“You mean, by my hand or yours.”

Hannibal examined the steering wheel. “There must be some things you care about enough to die for.”

"There are. Common courtesy is not one of them.”

“Neither is it one of mine.”

“Then it’s agreed. No one dies tonight.”

Hannibal just looked at him, and Will thought about how pointless this discussion was. He thought about how he had known from the moment that Hannibal asked him to do it, that he would kill Pearce Odilo. He wondered if it was as clear to Hannibal as it was to himself. He hoped it wasn’t. He thought about how he’d have all the pointless discussions in the world if it gave the impression that he was still fighting, even if he wasn’t.

He thought this as he got out of the car and led Hannibal up the path to the backyard gate, shrouded in foggy darkness.

\---

LATER

\---

Hannibal’s Bentley crunched up Will’s driveway around eleven. Will was glad. He was tired, and his suit was riding up in the back.

“I have a gift,” announced Hannibal, before Will had a chance to get out of the car.

“If it’s a ring on a human finger, I swear to god.”

Hannibal smiled. “It’s not a ring on a human finger.”

“Then go ahead. I didn’t buy you anything, though, which is probably for the best. I’m sure I saved you the trouble of feigning gratitude.”

Hannibal shrugged and exited the car, trudging around to open the trunk. Will half expected him to return with Pearce Odilo’s head, but instead he slid back into the drivers seat holding a wrapped silver package.

“A Christmas gift,” he said simply, handing it to Will.

“It’s not Christmas yet.”

“I’m sure Saint Nicholas will forgive you, just this once.”

Will ripped open the silver wrapping paper and extracted the box of Polo Ralph Lauren Cologne.

“Is this your way of subtly hinting that I smell bad?”

“There’s nothing subtle about it.”

Will unlocked the passenger door and let himself out. Rounding the Bentley, he walked up the path to his house. He could see his dogs waiting for him through the screen door.

“Will!” Hannibal called after him, rolling down the window.

“What?”

"Merry Christmas, Will."

Will laughed. "And a happy new year."

**Author's Note:**

> A billion apologies to tumblr user mythologyhotspot for submitting this crazy late. It was only suppose to be around a thousand words, but I for some reason found the idea of an 'FBI Children's Benefit: Featuring Dracula' absolutely hilarious and fitting with the dark humor of the show.
> 
> >>> decotex.tumblr.com


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